Related Research Projects
& Collaborative Efforts
One of the most rewarding aspects of the Getting Word project is our association with others who have the same interest in bringing to light the lives of Americans of the past. This includes many Getting Word participants. Over the course of more than a decade, their research has enriched our understanding of African-American history and often combined with our own work to make exciting connections. Mary Hemings descendant Edna Jacques, for instance, created a web site about her ancestors and continues to research and write about them.
Local organizations like Charlottesville’s African-American Genealogy Group (AAGG) are another example of people making lasting contributions to the historical record of enslaved people. Gayle Schulman and the late Julian Burke, AAGG members, compiled data from the records of a local African-American funeral home, as well as unearthing church records which reveal the names (and often surnames) of Albemarle County’s enslaved African Americans.
Then there are the growing number of academic scholars seeking to understand the realities of life under slavery. Through the work of DePaul University professor Ellen Eslinger, who studies the African-American experience in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, we first learned of the decision of Brown Colbert, a son of Betty Brown and brother of butler Burwell Colbert, to move to Liberia with his family in 1832. Local researcher and author Cyndi Burton shared her discovery of a photograph of Sally Cottrell Cole, the seventh known image of someone who lived in slavery at Monticello. Archaeologist and professor Lynn Rainville, through her work on African-American burial grounds, has contributed to many insights.
There is related research always going on as well. Learn about archaeological research along Mulberry Row and about the over six hundred enslaved people who lived at Jefferson's Virginia plantations in the Monticello Plantation Database. You may also wish to explore the Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery (DAACS), a resource for information on Monticello and other plantations in the region.